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AUGUSTA -- Police asked for the public's help as they spent Friday investigating the homicide of Michael A. Roderick, 52, of Augusta.

Roderick was found dead Thursday in the Eastern Avenue home he occupied for more than 25 years.

Maine State Police and Augusta police were at Roderick's home Thursday night and Friday collecting evidence.

Roderick was divorced in 1995. Police said he lived alone and was disabled after a 1981 fall at work. He most recently had worked as a worm digger and kept a boat on the coast, police and neighbors said.

Roderick's family members ******. His mother, *******, and one of his brothers, said they did not want to talk when contacted on Friday.

Maine State Police spokesman Steve McCausland said Roderick was found dead after 7 p.m. Thursday by a friend who came to visit.

Roderick's body was taken to the State Medical Examiner's Office in Augusta and an autopsy was conducted Friday.

"We know what the cause is," McCausland said. "We're not releasing the details."

McCausland said Roderick likely was killed during the day Thursday.

On Friday, yellow tape cordoned off the 1 1/2-story brown clapboard house and large detached garage as police cars lined the long, private dirt driveway off Eastern Avenue and several members of a state police evidence team worked outside.

McCausland said investigators worked until 3 a.m. Friday, then returned to the house about 8 a.m. to continue the investigation, he said.

Augusta police Lt. Keith Brann asked that anyone who saw anything suspicious in the area between 7 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Thursday to call Augusta police at 626-2370.

In particular, they said they believe motorists stopped for roadwork on Eastern Avenue on Thursday may have seen a person or a vehicle leaving Roderick's dirt driveway, just east of Lynn Road.

"Even the most minute thing might be important," Brann said.

Court records show Roderick was convicted in 1996 in Augusta District Court of three misdemeanor offenses: two counts of endangering the welfare of a child and one count of unlawful sexual contact. A docket report indicates all the offenses occurred on Nov. 1, 1995.

He appealed the convictions to Kennebec County Superior Court, but they were upheld. He served his 60-day jail sentence in three-day increments during a period of 20 weeks.

The conviction put him on the state's Sex Offender Registry for a 10-year period. He came off the listing several years ago, according to McCausland.

AUGUSTA -- Six months ago, 52-year-old Michael Roderick was slain in his home on the east side of the city, and most of the details remain a mystery.

Investigators have yet to charge anyone in the killing, and his daughter, ******, said she understands the reason.

"They don't want to release any information so they can catch the person," she said. "I don't have a problem with it."

******, and her family recently moved into her father's 11/2-story clapboard saltbox, where he had lived alone.

One wall -- the one a visitor sees first when entering the home -- will be dedicated to her father's memory.

She plans to hang up his trophy fish and deer, and even the award her father earned in high school for automotive troubleshooting.

"He was my best friend," she said. "He taught me how to drive. He taught me how to fish. At 4 o'clock in the morning, I had to put on 15 layers of clothing to go ice fishing. He taught me to hunt, shoot a bow and how to drive a standard."

Her father loved hunting and fishing, she said recently while sorting through a large box of photos that showed him with his trophy catches and with his family on holidays.

******* and her older brother, ******, who now lives with his family in **another state**, were Roderick's only children.

Michael Roderick died before he could meet his newest grandchild, *****'s son, ******, now 2 weeks old. She has other children, ******.

Her older children ask often about PŽp�re, or grandfather.

"***** has nightmares every night because she thinks whoever killed my dad is going to do the same thing to her," ******* said. "I gave my father most of his gray hairs; my children gave him the rest."

Michael Roderick -- a state-licensed worm harvester who operated a Wellcraft boat, which he kept on the coast -- went to Cony High School and the vocational school, but his true vocation was the great outdoors.

"He liked to do anything that was outside," she said. "He loved to be outside. He loved to teach. He taught neighborhood kids to shoot a bow and some boys to box. He loved to show people things that he knew. Anything to do with outside or teaching somebody something, that was his bread and butter."

She is proud of the house her father built.

"He and my mother drew up the blueprints," ******* said. "He dowsed for the well. It's an artesian well, so it will never go dry. I can hear him saying, 'Stop running that water; you're going to dry up the well.' "

She said her father could be stubborn, refusing to put the finishing touches on the house because he believed it would raise his property tax bill.

"He and the tax assessor went round and round," she said.

Even as a youngster, ****** fought to get the house finished. "I remember when I was 12 or 13, we'd argue. Dad's favorite line was, 'It doesn't matter. You'll get the house when I die anyway.' "

Now she's torn about whether to remove the orange countertop or keep it as another reminder of her father.

"Everybody's trying to convince me, '*****, let it go,' " she said.

As for the homicide investigation, little information is available.

Roderick's body was discovered by a friend who stopped to visit on the evening of Oct. 16, 2008.

"Investigators have made significant progress," said Steve McCausland, spokesman for the Maine State Police. "Augusta and state police have done more than 100 interviews and worked with a number of other police agencies in aftermath of his death."

McCausland said recently that authorities will not provide details about the manner of Roderick's death.

"There are only a limited number of people who know that: the investigators and those responsible for his death," McCausland said.

Augusta and Maine State Police cordoned off the area around Roderick's home, which is accessible by a long, unpaved driveway off Eastern Avenue just east of Lynn Road.

Detectives searched the area immediately around the home and appealed to the public to report anyone seen leaving Roderick's driveway between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. that day.

Motorists in the area had to travel particularly slowly at the time because of roadway construction.

"Our phone lines are still open for anyone who may have heard something that they think may not be critical," McCausland said. "That may be the thing that breaks this case wide open."

Roderick's mother, ******, recently declined to talk about her son or the investigation. She said the police also have advised her not to discuss the subject.

Michael Roderick, who was disabled after a fall at work in 1981, was convicted in 1996 of three misdemeanor offenses: unlawful sexual contact and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child. Those convictions placed him on the state's Sex Offender Registry for 10 years. He had come off the registry before his death.

Investigators plan more interviews in connection with the killing of Michael Roderick of Augusta.

AUGUSTA — Augusta police and Maine State Police detectives have finished collecting evidence from the scene of the Thursday slaying of an Augusta man and have moved their investigation to state police offices on Hospital Street, Department of Public Safety spokesman Steve McCausland said Sunday.

The team of 10 detectives worked through the weekend to collect clues and interview acquaintances of Michael Roderick, 52, who was found dead Thursday night in his Eastern Avenue home, according to McCausland.

"There have been a number of interviews that have been conducted," he said. "There will be more."

State police continue to withhold information about Roderick's cause of death and the results of an autopsy conducted Friday by the state Medical Examiner's Office. They have not yet named a suspect or made any arrests in connection with the homicide.

"A lot of work has been completed in the last three days," McCausland said. "And a lot more work remains."

McCausland said detectives focused their interviews on friends, neighbors, relatives and others who knew Roderick.

"That's usually the circle we concentrate on and then we expand from there," he said.

McCausland noted that multiple people responded to police appeals for information about vehicles or people in Roderick's driveway Thursday. He urged those with information to call state police at 624-7076. ..Source.. by MATTHEW STONE, Kennebec Journal

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